


Paris 1968

by Dreamboat_queen



Category: One Direction
Genre: 1968, 68 Revolution, Angst, Harry stutters (a lot), M/M, Painter Harry, Paris - Freeform, Smut, Social Anxiety, but is mostly resolved, lots of 60s music and culture references, revolutionary louis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-02 11:45:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15795849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamboat_queen/pseuds/Dreamboat_queen
Summary: Paris 1968In which Harry is a stuttering painter who suffers from social anxiety and Louis is a revolutionary student who fights for social equality and can't keep his witty mouth shut.





	1. L'Homme et la Mer

Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer!  
La mer est ton miroir; tu contemples ton âme  
Dans le déroulement infini de sa lame,  
Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.

 

Free man, you will always cherish the sea!  
The sea is your mirror; you contemplate your soul  
In the infinite unrolling of its billows;  
Your mind is an abyss that is no less bitter.

Charles Baudelaire, Fleurs du mal

 

 

Song: Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd

 

It always starts from water. Whether it concerns the history of the Earth or one of a single individual. Harry knew it so well when he pulled his head out from the shallow liquid of the tub. It was quite a habit for him to soak his curls, dipping his head until his lungs and blood felt as if they were screaming and begging for mercy. He used to watch the little bubbles coming out of his mouth and think he was so close.  Maybe close enough to grasp the meaning of the Universe he thought lied in the deep and desperate connection between human souls and nature. But in a instant it was always gone. His resurfacing head accompanied by heavy breaths, always a moment too early or too late, could never  recollect the feeling of infinitude the boy had experienced while dipped in. 

On the evening of April the 4th 1968 Harry Styles had just finished one of these suffocating/meditating sessions, his sight and hands sensibility slowly returning to a normal condition allowing him to acknowledge the unusual feeble pink colour of the water. He stood up from his sitting position in the tub, careful not to hit the low ceiling already showing too many deep cracks resembling atrocious scars. He walked on a zig zag path to reach his green towel in order not to stomp on cig butts or any of his painting supplies resting on the floor.

"Liam's gonna kill me" he muttered under his breath and finally reached the yellowish sink where the towel laid messily. Harry usually tried not to look at his image on the mirror while standing in front of it. He strongly believed mirrors together with photos, had the strange power of showing you either too much reality or a completely distorted one. That time though he let his glance linger on the steamy surface. He sighed pressing his palm over it trying to clear his vision until he could perfectly distinguish his lean figure and tired face. Somebody had once told him they felt more comfortable with speaking about themselves in front of a mirror while he only felt even more self conscious and anxious. He grumbled again something about Liam going to  murder him when he noticed the deep cut just above his left eyebrow which had already begun to cicatrise. He didn't actually care about it but he knew Liam would have. He really wished though he had an exciting explanation for how he got in fact injured, but reality was he had just fell from his chair while drunkenly painting. 

He mentally took note of inventing a story when Liam had eventually asked about it and placed a cigarette between his lips. He had to walk out of the small bathroom to find a working lighter placed on the kitchen counter. Harry couldn't actually call that room kitchen since his bed and painting stuff was also there, therefore he had decided not to call it at all. He wasn't good with words anyway.

He inhaled the last drag of smoke and looked at the goosebumps forming on his right arm. The balcony door was wide open and a gentle vernal breeze stirred the flowery curtain.  A ruffled paper began to spin on the pavement, soft pencil traits nearly visible on the surface. It  stopped against a large canvas with a giant "FUCK IT" sign written on it, perfectly describing the painter's general attitude. 

Harry's last work still rested on a homemade and precarious easel. His countercurrent late impressionistic manner of drawing hadn't earned much success neither from exhibitions curators nor general public in the last period or throughout his career . Even though Harry's decent contributions to the well-known stylistic current, nobody seemed to acknowledge anymore the feelings evoked by those kind of paintings preferring the essentialism of the conceptual art or the pop art's tangibility.  
Harry liked them too, but he also couldn't stand them. He always felt oppressed by the powerful thrust they had toward the observer, feeling as if he was brutally dragged to face a reality intentionally designed to be perceived by anyone in the same manner. 

The remaining furnishings inside the room consisted in a small double sized bed covered with a pale and discoloured green duvet along with a solitary brown pillow. It laid sideways on a wooden bedside table, which was completely glued to a tiny wardrobe. A rather unsteady table with two chairs were the last pieces of forniture filling up the space. 

Harry found himself staring outside the opened door and decided to actually drag himself to the balcony. The chilly breeze made him shiver again when he stepped shoeless on the cold pavement. He remembered falling asleep that afternoon with the sound of a heavy rainstorm, which had left space to a surreal peace.

The painter let his gaze linger on the unusually still water of the river. The Seine looked as if it was ready to overflow, vomiting all the incredible amount of water it had gained during the day.  
Harry imagined himself floating on the dirty surface and shuddered. 

Trying to recollect the feelings he had experienced in the tub with a cold mind was always a struggle for him. Back in his school days he had read a poem by Wordsworth. He didn't actually remember the title, but the concept it expressed had always haunted him. 

"The act of composing poetry is divided in two parts" Wordsworth had said "A first one in which the poet experiences a certain powerful feeling and a second one, happening in tranquillity, in which the writing occurs". This idea had struck Harry to the point he had tried to put it into practice in his own way of drawing. He had failed every time, noticing that the results obtained in tranquility weren't even half as powerful. And again, his mystical underwater experiences couldn't be controlled too. 

Liam knew about this insane habit of his since he had walked in on a half drowned Harry . Then he had freaked out and when the painter had told him he had done it on purpose Liam had officially classified him as mental. Harry agreed with him. 

His habitude started with him nearly drowning at the age of six in the English Channel. He remembered his mum's face as if it was yesterday. She was scared to death. Harry wasn't. He thought he had literally died, mostly because he couldn't express that experience in any other way. Later on he would have discovered the word waterboarding and known about people nearly drowning themselves in order to experiment spiritual connections with nature. At the age of seventeen thus he had decided to give this practice a try, consumed by the thought of not being able to remember the previous feeling.  
Although having been many times close to his goal, Harry had always been overcome by the unbearable pain and had never been able to recollect the underwater experience he had at six. 

A shining reflection coming from the river interrupted his thoughts. A evening sun appeared from behind the dense blanket of reddish clouds. The gentle scent of rain mixed with the aestival perfume of sun rays reached the painter's nostrils as he lazily peered at the street below the balcony. He distinguished Liam's figure walking down the quay. He was accompanied by a shorter person wearing a pair of kaki trousers. Harry's gaze locked with Liam's when the pair got closer and the painter waved at him. The other man seemed unwilling to return the motion, instead looked nervously at the smaller boy standing next to him. Harry watched the two of them reach the building's door. From that position he could perfectly acknowledge the boy's fairy hair, the sun kissing it with its reddish light. The scented breeze blew again in the painter's face, bringing with itself a strange feeling of bliss. He looked lightheartedly at the reddening water of the river then again at the boy's shining hair. 

He felt as if summer was coming.


	2. Sunday Bloody Sunday

Edel sei der Mensch  
Hilfreich und gut!  
Denn das allein  
Unterscheidet ihn  
Von allen Wesen,  
Die wir kennen.

Let man be noble,  
Generous and good;  
For that alone  
Distinguishes him  
From all the living  
Beings we know.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Das Göttliche, On the Divine 

 

Song: Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon by Queen 

On April the 4th 1968 Liam Payne had set his alarm at 4:35 PM. Sunday was usually a relief for a literature student at the Université de Paris. Unfortunately this was true as long as they didn't have to work their asses off every Saturday night in a dirty, muddled, stinky pub as Liam did. 

Liam stood up from his neat bed at exactly 4:36. He yawned while walking straight to the bathroom where he stumbled into the strangely opened door. If Liam had been asked about it, he would have 100% claimed that door was clearly the first sign of how miserable the day would have gone. Though at that moment he simply frowned and meticulously closed it. 

He began his morning ritual with washing his face. That simple gesture had always made him feel as if he was starting off the day with the right foot. Maybe the origins of these thoughts were to be found in his military education or at least that was what Liam had always believed. If the man had been born just some years later, though, doctors would have diagnosed him with a not that mild obsessive compulsive disorder.

It was not that he had ever been particularly keen on achieving a soldierly carrier when he decided to enrol at the Academy at the age of sixteen, but overall it was the cheapest way to get a passable education. 

Thanks to the Academy however he had developed an unusual love for poetry. His literary inspiration occurred to him in a rather strange way which Liam was always so eager to narrate. Actually, it had not been a poetic-worth experience if we put it in those terms, but nevertheless encouraged the man to attend the Literature course at such a prestigious University.

Shifting the towel he had used to dry his face, Liam was able to examine his facial features appearing on the mirror. Hazel eyes blinked back at him from the shiny surface before resting on a bushy beard and a big mole beneath, an imperfection which had always annoyed the man. 

"Liam" he whispered gazing at himself attentively, "Liam" he spoke louder this time "Liam" he nearly yelled as if demanding an answer from his mirror self. He usually didn't need a third reclaim to get his shit together, but that specific Sunday was already driving him insane. The fault was perhaps to be found in the humid air announcing an upcoming storm or simply in that damned bathroom door he had left ajar.

Although, a temporal was really approaching as Liam could ascertain from the tiny kitchen window. A fine Italian coffee, a specialty he had learned to reproduce during his previous year journey to the Country, was already boiling over the cookers when he decided to step out onto the small balcony jutting into the quay.

Song: Meet Me In The Hallway by Harry Styles

With one hand occupied by a mug of coffee and his gaze fixed on the grey cumulus far away in the distance, Liam lit his first and only cigarette for the upcoming day.

It was Harry's fault if he was now enslaved in  
this bad and time consuming habit. Then again, of course it was not.

Liam breathed the smoky scent following the course of his thoughts back to the summer of '59 when he, reaching the younger lad sprawled onto the fine English grass beneath a big and circular tree, had found himself not anymore able to hide a certain burning feeling growing inside his guts at that fiery curly sight.  
That night, the air surrounding a standing Liam was ardent against his skin and filled with crickets' voices. He could smell the odour of the humid lawn, sticky against his sweaty calves.

"I was looking for you" he had breathed out all at once, hazel eyes hot with concern glued on the Greek cross rising rhythmically on the youngster' s chest.   
"Y-you or your M-mum?"  Harry's eyes were closed. Liam was so eager to get burned by them.  
"Both I guess?"  
"S-sit with m-me?"

And how could have Liam been able to say no to the warm hand grabbing his shivering wrist?   
And to the aglow look finally heating up Harry's raw green eyes and Liam's stomach with them.  
He was so distracted he nearly missed the way in which a cigarette had been placed on Harry's shimmering lips. Liam licked his dry and cold mouth wanting nothing more than Harry to set it on fire with his. Like the arid beam of hay when kissed by the estival afternoon sun.

He was expecting the cigarette to automatically combust between the heat irradiated by Harry's lips, but the shining light of a match revealed the opposite.

"Since when you smoke?" They were both resting their backs against the coarse tree trunk.   
"A while" He did not stutter, some letters were easier for him to pronounce.   
"Wanna t-t-t-..." The T was a hard one. Liam found himself aroused by the way in which his eyebrows furrowed in frustration.  
"Wannatry?" He spit it out all at once and Liam couldn't help but laugh a little. Harry didn't seem too pleased. Liam returned serious.  
"Sure" he answered, hoping to be grazed by his warmth again. He was really wishing Harry would give him his already started cigarette, so that he could taste him through it, but that was not the case.   
"S-stay s-s-still" 

Liam noticed how, despite the growing heat coursing through his body, his hands were still trembling like young leaves under a dashing wind. Fear and excitement were leaving him in form of small but repetitive shivers.   
"God, I was worried, thought you got lost in the wood" Liam sighed, the cigarette pressed against his lips was not burning. (But I am, he thought out loud to himself )

"I always c-c-come here, it' s wonderful"  
Liam agreed silently, eyes wandering around the restless trees and sleek grass. The trunk against which they were leaning stood nearly in the middle of a small clearing from which the crackling of a narrow gutter was audible among the sharp crickets' chirp.  
The dark sky with its bright trail of stars left Liam choking in amazement when he diverted his sight above his head, through wry branches and trembling leaves.

"Jaja" Liam directed his attention back to Harry and his eyes felt hot and glossy as if he had actually been crying a molten fire. 

Among all the letters, the L was the hardest for Harry to pronounce. Few in fact were the words he used in phrases beginning with it. Including Liam's name. 

'Jaja' was the nickname he had been calling the other guy since the very beginning of their companionship. Liam had once bravely asked about the meaning behind it. Harry was reading a thick book and did not seem too pleased with his friend's interruption. He simply growled and shifted the position on his chair, wiping away his hair from his forehead and remaining silent for what it seemed an eternity. 

"D-does it really m-m-matter? It's just a n-name anyway. W-words aren't g-good enough to d-describe p-p-p..."  
Liam had at this point smiled encouragingly.  
"People complexity" Harry finished   
"You know what" Liam sighed " Forget I asked"   
"Although" Harry added quickly with a grin, maybe not to upset his friend " I m-m-may or may not have m-m-misheard your s-s-second name t-t-that one t-t-time four years ago when we were i-introduced"   
"You? Mishearing something? Well, that sounds new!" Liam laughed wholeheartedly and Harry simply shrugged his shoulders. They had that disproportionate shape of a twelve years old whose body was too eager to grow in too little time.  
"I wasn't t-this used t-t-to English p-p-people s-s-speaking English, y-you know? R-Russian accent, that's what I'm t-t-talking about!"

'He's only smiling with his lips' Liam thought shifting in his own chair in discomfort. Harry hardly ever spoke about the life he had before Liam and his family. He didn't seem upset though for he had resumed his reading, lean back curved over the table. Liam watched the pendant around his neck oscillate softly.   
'Will you ever tell me the story behind it?' Liam wondered silently.

"M-m-moreover Jah is the name of the R-Rastafarian God."  
"What?" Liam seemed perplexed. He for sure did not know what Rastafarian meant. But for some reason a pleasant feeling enlightened his cheeks.  
"So I'm k-kinda r-r-referring to you as a g-g-god or something r-right?" Harry was staring at him with a new intensity in his eyes. Under his vivid gaze Liam began to sweat unconsciously.  
'What's all of this about' he thought, feeling somehow weightless.   
"If you say so" He had to clear his throat in order to play it cool.  
Harry nodded solemnly, as if he was a keeper of secrets too big for anyone in that room, that strange light still burning behind his irises and the pendant shining as bright as ever on his chest.

Suddenly Liam felt incredibly young in comparison to the lanky and raw-featured lad sitting in front of him. ' Maybe it's a right sensation. I should feel young, after all, I'm fourteen'  
But Harry was twelve. And beautiful .

And if he had felt younger at fourteen, he surely should not have had at eighteen. But he did. 

Under that circular tree in the middle of the wood, Liam was impatiently waiting for Harry to say something, a growing fire licking his insides.   
"Jaja, s-shall I l..." he stopped and sighed. 'Light' was the word he was struggling with, so he mimed the motion of lighting a match. Liam stared at his fingers throughout the action. Then he replied with a muffled "of course".  
Harry began to search in his pockets, lean but strong arms rummaging through his body.

"F-found 'em!" he exclaimed at last. A smile carving two deep dimples in his cheeks and setting on fire the already hot air surrounding them. And poor Liam didn't even have the chance to recover from this powerful scorch for Harry's warm hand had landed softly on his knee followed by his whole sweaty body leaning in, in order to light the cigarette. 

Liam felt as if he could faint. He never thought this could actually happen in real life, but the suffocating sensation in his arid mouth was proving him otherwise. And, seemingly to when the fire spreads through the woods and you can not extinguish it anymore so you just try to restrain it, praying it would fade by itself, such did Liam whose guts burned ravishingly in a hot summer night.

Liam remembered having watched with dazzling eyes the cigarette smoke blowing in the air above him, through branches and leaves, striving for the sky.

'That's what I have become' he thought 'Ash and smoke for I am no water.'

 

Song: Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2

 

On that bloody Sunday afternoon in 1968, Liam Payne knew how to restrain the fire. Actually, he was pretty good at it, he thought smugly while sipping the remaining coffee and putting out the stub in a completely empty ashtray (Liam emptied it every night, especially when Harry came over).

A lighting bolt fell in the distance, but Liam's gaze was fixed on the oak stretching out its branches just few feet away from the perilous water of the Seine. Strangely enough, its foliage was shaped like a big round headgear and its circular shadow was oddly satisfying. Liam chuckled.

'It was not a oak' he thought, bringing back his mind to his young memories of just few seconds ago. 'I can't remember exactly what kind of tree it was though' he shrugged and scratched his beard.  
'Maybe Harry knows, he loved that place, I should ask him' but he already knew he would not dare.

The latter tree was not precisely in the middle of the clearing. Liam had not noticed it at that time, though he did now. And it annoyed him.   
The oak instead was nicely placed near a bench where occasionally Harry would sit and paint. Liam felt as if they had been doomed to find this setting for their new life, when they had moved to Paris, the previous year.

He went inside the kitchen again, ready to cook a very late breakfast when a sudden image crossed his mind. An empty coffee mug fell on the floor and crushed. Liam watched incredulous his hands. Shock coursing through his body. 

"Fuck" he breathed nervously "fuckfuckfuck"  
"It cannot fucking be" he cursed, quickly reached his bedroom, rummaged through his neat university papers and cursed again. It could be.  
"Fuck" his hands flew in his hair. His comparative paper on Alcaeus of Mytilene and Horace was nowhere to be found. 

Liam pictured it once again in his head. And there it stood. On a solitary desk, in the middle of a huge class, forgotten by a too inattentive Liam. 

He dressed himself as fast as he could and sprinted downstairs, out of his small apartment, wrenching his nose at the permanent smell soaking the thick layer of moquette. He did not greet the porter, Gustave, who swore only to return languidly to his half-empty wine glass just a few seconds later.

But Liam's feet were already running on the quay and were directed to the quickest way to the Université. 

He glanced over his shoulder and from where he stood he could delineate the squared shape of Harry's balcony, just above his own. A late and feeble sun ray was caught by the rusty railing, shining with a reddish light but then a thunder clap cracked and swept it away.

And what actually made Liam start to feel this old was a mystery to him for his heart felt as if it had gained hundreds of years when, instead, his young and fearful soul still trembled under the dashing wind.


	3. The Balcony Scene

She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?  
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.  
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:  
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,  
Having some business, do entreat her eyes  
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.  
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2, The Balcony Scene

Song: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor Op 67 1st Movement 

 

Among all the useless objects filling up Harry's room, three of them could have somehow been considered valuable: a Cuban cigar stuffed inside a drawer, the shining Greek cross hanging around his neck and an old record player. 

On that specific Monday morning Harry was in fact fumbling with a pile of LPs next to his bed, looking for an album that matched his grey mood. The task became harder when he decided to light a cigarette. Eventually, he gave up on his search and casually picked up a vinyl from the stack. It was a Beethoven's 5th symphony record. 

Beethoven was not his favourite composer, actually it was not even part of his top-ten ranking, but Harry was a lazy man and therefore placed the vinyl on the turntable without hesitation. Accompanied by a scratchy sound, the music began to play, spreading out of the balcony door. Harry had left it accidentally open the previous night and now the room was filled with scented air. 

He stub out the cigarette drifting his attention to the melody. Its restless rhythm somehow reminded him of one of those loud dreams he used to have when he was high, about hundreds of characters chanting their own language and melting into a extraordinarily harmonic roar exactly in the middle of his body. 'Surrealistic experience' Liam had incorrectly called it once. Harry rarely corrected him.

The melody tones exploded in a crescendo of violins' strings when Harry bent to casually grab a book. Julian and Maddalo by Shelley.   
'Not a bad choice' he thought to himself. Actually, he had already read the poem, but because of lack of money he really could not afford to buy new books. Occasionally he would borrow some from Liam who borrowed them from the University's library. They would duly disappear and Liam would always bawl at Harry.   
"T-t-they were c-crap anyway" he would answer lighting a cigarette and Liam would stop talking to him for a week.

Harry walked toward the fresh air outside the balcony, tired gaze already fixed on the still water in front of him. It shone under the pale morning sun.

'Shelly dreaded the water as well but still he longed for it'   
He shivered while the music played loudly, following his thoughts.

Then his naked feet stumbled upon the ashtray with an absurd noise.  
"F-f-fuck" Harry hissed, massaging quickly his foot while hopping on  
the cold balcony pavement. Curly hair fell in front of his squinted eyes and the man blew it away in pain.

"Est-ce que tout va bien?"  

Harry froze immediately, his leg still bent and foot raised. When he had been younger he had never been a great fan of social games, he would never remember the other kids' names and be hit for that. He absolutely loathed blind man's bluff for having his sight restrained made him feel like a tortured fly. Or a blind painter. 

Droplets of this ancient fear slipped subtly along his insides at the sound of that limpid French voice. Obviously it was a different sensation, but still a new and unknown anxiety filled Harry's body. It almost felt as if he had lost his dearest possession somewhere in an unattainable place.

But Harry had never heard that voice before. And, despite his lack of ability in playing any game, he immediately identified the balcony beneath as the source of the sound. 

"Oui, t-t-tout va b-b-bien" he awkardly stuttered, then sat on the ground resting his shoulders against the scraped wall. He desperately needed a cigarette.

"Beethoven was one of the greatest classicist composers. Even though he referred his works to previous ones such as Mozart's and Haydn's."

The crystalline voice overcame the melody coming from Harry's room, filling his ears again. It surely belonged to a man, maybe younger than how Harry was.

"Is t-t-this a k-kind of t-test or something ?"   
He managed to ask whilst placing a cigarette on his lips.

"Obviously" 

An unexpected grin lit Harry's cheeks.   
Perhaps he should have questioned the voice about his means in occupying his friend's Liam balcony, but he surely would have enjoyed it immensely less than accepting the challenge. He stretched out his arm in order to grab a box of matches from a wooden chair. The pain in his foot was already forgotten.

"While it's t-true that B-Beethoven's symphonies' structure r-resembles the c-classical circular motion of M-Mozart's sonata" Harry cupped a hand near his mouth and lit the cigarette " the t-t-themes, especially in t-the 5th symphony, could b-be instead b-brought b-b-back to a romantic d-dimension of individual f-f-fight against human d-d-destiny. B-b-Beethoven's rhythms m-moreover are commonly associated to n-n-nationalistic melodies. Not classicist at all"

The air felt stiff at once. Harry gazed at the earliest tourist ferry sail from the opposite bank of the river. 

"My name is Louis" 

Louis. Harry would have never dared to try to pronounce that name, nor that consonant. Not even under torture. Actually, he was not really aching to continue to conversate with this balcony intruder whose voice sounded incredibly, annoyingly clear. 

"Harry" he successfully managed not to stutter his name. He wished this Louis would leave and let him coil in self loathing for not being able to pronounce a fucking letter. Then he would shower, maybe jerk off and peacefully immerge himself in the water filled tub where he would choke until some kind of twisted inspiration would enlighten his mind for him to begin to paint. And the day after he would repeat the process. 

He closed his eyes, protecting them from the rising sun, for the headache he had previously underestimated threatened to squeeze his brain out of his cranium. 

"Your n-n-name is incredibly F-F-French for you not to show the s-slightest i-inflection whilst speaking E-English "

Harry smelled the other man lighting a cigarette. And for some unknown reason he knew that he would have left the ashtray untouched, dirtying Liam's pavement. 

" and you too. I must admit you almost fooled me with all that stuttering and stuff. God, have anybody ever told you how fucking annoying it is to hear?" He paused, maybe to take a drag on his smoke "Still, you almost fooled me, but was that an imperceptible Russian accent I heard?"

Harry's eyes opened. Nobody had ever been capable of making him open his eyes in such astonishment before. Not only had the man acknowledged his Russian origins, but had also addressed his stuttering problem with such a limpid and frank honesty that had left Harry boiling in a mixture of fury and ...relief? 

Harry's intentions changed. An honest curiosity toward the unknown witty voice kindled his interest. Why would Liam know someone such beyond his cleverness reach?Maybe he was jumping too quickly to conclusions. 

"D-d-do you always t-t-test people b-before t-t-...talking to them?" And when he tried not to stutter, it would always become worse.

"Of course" The first symphony movement was coming to an end. Harry had forgotten about the book resting on his knees.

"Why?" He asked finally sincerely interested. He had never seen this guy and maybe never would. Moreover his strange method of talking was not flattering at all. Yet his voice was incredibly calm, clear and made Harry feel as if he was underwater. That thought made him shudder in annoyance. Though his eyes remained glued to the glittering course of the Seine.

"Because I wish to know if I should start a conversation about cocktails, politics or Hegel"

"H-How would you kn-kn-know that?" Harry was actually surprised.

"Cocktails: lighthearted people. They totally ignore my comment. Politics: self-centred fellows. They agree animatedly to my wrong statement and begin to rattle off everything they've read about the topic on 'History of the World Advanced Edition', or on a another shitty college book of that sort. Hegel: acculturated people who don't give a fuck about talking with me. They correct my phrase."

Harry laughed. It was not amusing, but the brightness of that boy's method of approaching strangers could actually be pretty damn effective. Even for someone as recluse as Harry was.

"Glad to know you don't stutter while you laugh. I was starting to think you were a totally lost cause." Harry could not see him, but he heard him munch whilst speaking. Was he eating Liam's food? 

"I m-might b-b-be, t-t-though I p-prepare pretty enjoyable M-Martinis"

"Bet you do. Although, I'm not interested in having any sort of meeting with you" 

Harry was taken aback by the man's statement. He was in fact really beginning to appreciate that straightforward way of speaking. Suddenly, he considered standing up and returning inside for he had already spoken way too much for his normal standards.

"T-the feeling is m-m-mutual" he collected the book from his knees and stood up. God, he needed a long and relaxing tub session. 

"Good, I really didn't want to spoil the image I've created of you in my head while listening to your nagging prattle" 

His sleek voice was in sharp contrast with the words springing from his mouth. Harry's throbbing head spun furiously. He leaned against the balcony wall again and slide until he hit the floor.

"What are you d-doing in Ja...P-Payne's apartment anyway?" He did not want to speak anymore. He felt like throwing up to cover the dewy sound of that Louis' voice. 

"Boring, I wish you wouldn't have asked it." He really sounded bored. 

"D-Did you speak about c-c-cocktails or you have a c-category for utter i-imbeciles as well?"

"We spoke about Shelly's death actually" 

"What a-about it-it?"

"I consider him an idiot, Payne thinks he's brilliant"

Harry gazed at the book on his legs. He wouldn't have chosen neither of the two adjectives to describe the poet. 

"S-So you're s-saying Shelly's a shitty p-p-poet?" He would have been rather disappointed if the man had affirmed it.

Shelly was nothing without his longing and nostalgic revolutionary spirit. 

"I haven't said that. His writing skills are obviously remarkable. Part of my own philosophy is based on his "Defence of Poetry", actually. What I contest is his reluctance to take actively part in social life business"

"A-Almost every p-p-poet of the t-time behaved in that way, m-moreover you c-can't deny that Shelly c-conducted his e-existence in a rather p-p-peculiar way" 

"Yes, almost! I could nominate a dozen of artists who instead participated animatedly to restore the revolutionary spirit"

Harry could not believe he was really having this conversation. Nobody whom he had known before had ever denigrated Shelly, but Louis was doing it with such naturalness, words lulled by his enchantress voice.

"Who f-for i-instance?" 

"Byron" 

Harry growled, charm completely vanished. He stood up anew but did not collect the book, leaving it on the floor, a thin feeling of nausea creeping into his stomach at its sight. Who the hell preferred Byron over Shelly?

"B-Byron" Harry repeated 

"Yes" he could sense a smirk accompanying Louis' words. 

"I t-thought we were having a s-s-serious c-conversation"

"We were before you asked me why I was in Payne's apartment" 

Harry decided it was time to retreat. 

"I-I-I...fuck" 

"It has been a pleasure" he heard those bright words leaving the man's mouth while slamming the balcony door shut, the flowery curtain got caught in between.

"Fuck" Harry's hands flew in his hair. He closed his eyes and pulled at his curls. It was an optimum way of relieving his headache pain.   
But a raging hatred filled his insides and Harry could not identify the source for it. He felt it in his head, pulsating at the same rhythm of his painful migraine. 

It was not the talk about Byron that infuriated him, but the simplicity with which that Louis had moulded witty words with a silk voice. Harry could still hear his fluent tones. 

He lay on the unmade bed, hands slipping over his face. The anxiety deriving from his social awkwardness, was something he was rather used to as well as the frustration that followed. Though this time an enormous variety of different sensations seemed to accompany them and Harry only wanted to shut them down, curling up in a ball. 

If it had only been self loathing, Harry would have known how to cope with it. He was not the type of man who cried himself to sleep after having insulted every single detail of his life (though it had happened more than once), he preferred instead to chain smoke the problem away, preferably dipped in his bathtub. 

Hell, he was not even entirely sure about the reasons for his inability to speak. He was not shy nor he cared that much about what other people thought of him.

'Would I like to be him?' Yes. Maybe. He suddenly thought. He imagined Louis' bewitching voice again and wondered about the privileges deriving from it. Fuck, he himself  had almost been fooled into his bullshit about Shelly. 

'I'm not envious' he thought while raising one of his arm. It seemed incredibly heavy. 

He tried to pronounce his name five times, but failed, then stood up and moved again slowly toward the balcony. Shelly's book still lay mischievously on the ground. Harry gazed at it and sighted. 

"L...L-Louis" his words were only whispers in comparison to the wild melody coming from the other man chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is the first story I've ever written and I really really hope it turns out good.
> 
> I've decided to put together some of the things I love the most in one single work, the first ones being Louis and Harry. I pretty much love art, poetry and 60s music too. 
> 
> My story takes place during the students revolution in 1968 in Paris, but instead of being in May, as it actually happened, the Revolution will be in August (for narrative reasons)...I really hope I won't have to historically change any other aspects. I apologise since now.
> 
> Moreover, since English is not my first language I again apologise for any mistake I'll make and I'd really appreciate if you could give me advice on grammar and vocabulary since I'm terrible at it.
> 
> feel free to correct any part that sounds wrong ( even if it's the whole chapter ) 
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you again, I really hope you'll like it xxx
> 
> Ps Larry is life


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